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Pick n mix

Hello It is pretty much accepted by a lot of people, including me, that the taekwondo patterns are fragments of karate kata put in a different arrangement with some slightly different movement dynamics laid over them However, it also seems there was a move to have as many variations to techniques as seems possible. By this I means we have San magki or mountain block with both knife hand and forearm presenations We also have some instances if different stance for the same technique. Knife hand strikes for example Are these differences valid or was it just an attempt to make the art 'bigger'?

Taekwondo was formed by committee. It helps to understand the politics leading up to the time of its creation.

Korea was occupied by the Japanese from the early 1900s til just after WW2. In that time the Japanese made a very good attempt to eradicate korean culture and heritage. Korean martial arts were outlawed and practically eradicated. Some korean martial artists went to Japan, where they were able to learn karate.

When Korea once again gained independence from their Japanese occupiers, the government wanted to rebuild Korean identity. Part of that (and I know I'm oversimplifying) involved creating a new ancient Korean martial art. Again cutting a long story short because there were many styles with many names, but the name taekwondo was ultimately chosen, and a select few Korean masters were chosen to make up the new ancient style. This ancient style of course dates back thousands of years, or at least as far back as the hwarang, despite not actually being formed until the 1950s.

So with this in mind, it's easy to see how it can have become a bit of a mix.

None of this diminishes it as a martial art though. Korea is not unique in fabricating it's heritage. The very karate that taekwondo takes from is only as ancient as the 1930s. And it is not 'a uniquely okinawan martial art' as Gichin Funakoshi writes, but is actually itself a pick n mix from many styles from the whole region including China. The Chinese of course also taking from other styles from the wider region, and claiming their uniquely Chinese ancient martial arts.

I'm terms of the sheer variety of techniques, I think this is only partly political, as part of the drive to make a style that outshines that of their Japanese former oppressors. I think in part it is generally because the committee that formed taekwondo had learned a variety of styles largely of karate but also some Chinese kung fu. I personally think it pays to have this wide variety. It trains your brain to move in more ways and almost certainly does no harm. Consider the open handed block versus it's closed handed counterpart. Advocates of some styles will argue with compelling arguments that closed handed is better. There's more tension in the arm and wrist etc etc. Open hand fans will have equally compelling arguments for keeping the fingers extended. It's faster and easier to turn into a grab etc. If both have their merits, why train only one?

Taekwondo was formed by committee. It helps to understand the politics leading up to the time of its creation. Korea was occupied by the Japanese from the early 1900s til just after WW2. In that time the Japanese made a very good attempt to eradicate korean culture and heritage. Korean martial arts were outlawed and practically eradicated. Some korean martial artists went to Japan, where they were able to learn karate. When Korea once again gained independence from their Japanese occupiers, the government wanted to rebuild Korean identity. Part of that (and I know I'm oversimplifying) involved creating a new ancient Korean martial art. Again cutting a long story short because there were many styles with many names, but the name taekwondo was ultimately chosen, and a select few Korean masters were chosen to make up the new ancient style. This ancient style of course dates back thousands of years, or at least as far back as the hwarang, despite not actually being formed until the 1950s. So with this in mind, it's easy to see how it can have become a bit of a mix. None of this diminishes it as a martial art though. Korea is not unique in fabricating it's heritage. The very karate that taekwondo takes from is only as ancient as the 1930s. And it is not 'a uniquely okinawan martial art' as Gichin Funakoshi writes, but is actually itself a pick n mix from many styles from the whole region including China. The Chinese of course also taking from other styles from the wider region, and claiming their uniquely Chinese ancient martial arts. I'm terms of the sheer variety of techniques, I think this is only partly political, as part of the drive to make a style that outshines that of their Japanese former oppressors. I think in part it is generally because the committee that formed taekwondo had learned a variety of styles largely of karate but also some Chinese kung fu. I personally think it pays to have this wide variety. It trains your brain to move in more ways and almost certainly does no harm. Consider the open handed block versus it's closed handed counterpart. Advocates of some styles will argue with compelling arguments that closed handed is better. There's more tension in the arm and wrist etc etc. Open hand fans will have equally compelling arguments for keeping the fingers extended. It's faster and easier to turn into a grab etc. If both have their merits, why train only one?

it is the last phrase in your response that actually is my questions.

take san Magki again for example, in different patterns is performed with open hand and with closed fist. is there merit and applications in both of those or was adding an open hand to that technique just a way to add variety?

there are other examples that i could bring up, like the low outer forearm block or low knifehan block, is there merit and seperate pracitcal application to both? in the main stream application it says one is to block a kick to the lower abdomen while the other is to block a kick to the groin. I am not sure the level of skill you would need order to make that distinction in the midst of a fight.

Whereas i agree with you about the relative properties that an open hand strike has over a closed fist, i am not sure that they fit in to all the techniques. Also couldn't the variety of attacking tools be covered in training rather than in the forms. since the gross movement would be the same.

Let's take a different example - sonkal daebi magki if memory serves is knifehand block and daebi magki is the same with closed fist.

Karate has the same in so far as one hand striking as a knifehand with the other hand "guarding the solar plexus" (the shuto movement) and also the same with closed fist. The way that most of us train it is that the closed rear hand means we're holding as opposed the open hand in which we aren't.

To bring it possibly a little closer to your example, the way that I've been taught kata means the mountain punch in Bassai Dai is a U-shaped movement. The body looks the same as the u-shaped movement at the end of empi with an open palm-up hand position. This latter one is seen in Po Eun. I can't think where the closed-fist version appears in TKD, but I'll be amazed if it doesn't. Different applications - one is striking, one is grabbing. Although reading this back this looks like I'm contradicting myself but I'll put this down to the kata being composed by different people at different times. Maybe Iain can dig me out of this hole. My point remains, that being that hand shapes give us different applications.

To have both versions makes sense due to different applications. They are giving us different information.

TKD was composed at a time when pragmatic karate bunkai was being lost. Everything was defending against a punch or kick. My strong suspicion is that the reason for different hand positions in TKD is purely aesthetic. I wouldn't try to read any application information into it.

Re knife hand block vs closed hand block: We should remember that a block is rarely actually just a block. Think about the low block for example. Bring your blocking hand up to the opposite shoulder, then drive down and across. All while a probably very fast kick is coming at you. Good luck making that work lol.

So why practice it that way?

Well, I think the old time masters when teaching their art possibly wanted to train principles rather than techniques. A lot goes on in the low block. We look at the counter motion of both arms, we look to generate power at the hips, we look to do it from a solid platform that is our stance etc. If we break down most techniques, we'll see the same principles recurring over and over.

So back to our simplified example. Low block. Open vs closed.

Making a clenched fist forms good rigid tension in the whole forearm. That's useful if we are going to strike with the forearm, or of course a hammer fist. It's also good if we are using the low block action to collapse the arm of somebody that has a good grip on us, ready to take out various arm locks and take downs etc. Even if simply as a block, having a clenched fist reduces the liklihood of dislocated or broken fingers if your block goes slightly off target and catches the kick square on.

Open handed blocks can also be strikes, as knife hand strikes. But I personally don't see that much value in that per se. Where they come in to their own is in grabbing the opponent. IF you are in a situation where you believe you can actually catch the incoming punch or kick, blocking open hand while simultaneously sliding diagonally to get off the centre line of attack while simultaneously closing the distance, then you have access to a whole range of options to control your opponent, throwing them down or just placing them in a better position for you.

In our training, usually (not always), closed hand versions often come from a solid stance while open hand versions come from our much more relaxed fighting stance (like a cat stance). Obviously there is no rule to say that when used for real your stance has to be one or other first, but I think when drilling these techniques, this stance distinction conveys the message that the closed hand is for situations that require immediate solid power, whereas open hand techniques are more for moments where there is natural fluid flow.

My strong suspicion is that the reason for different hand positions in TKD is purely aesthetic. I wouldn't try to read any application information into it.

This is largely my take. Speaking strictly from an ITF perspective, the impression that I get from reading old interviews with General Choi was that he wanted his patterns to represent all of the individual techniques of TKD, as well as his theories of movement and power generation. His official reasoning for replacing Kodang with Juche was that "new techniques were developed." Later patterns have a lot of repetition of 1-2 movements to both sides and flashy kicking, so I believe that adding variety was the real goal here. I'd imagine other styles of TKD aren't radically different on that front.

There's value in training stylistic variations for all kinds of reasons, but with TKD-specific variations I don't look particularly hard for unique applications.

Thought I'd chip in as Iain requested more action in this forum and I'm a TKD guy.

As mentioned I also think the TKD forms (I'm talking chang hon here rather than the Kukki ones) were put together fairly ad-hoc and with more an eye to aesthetics or personal preference (more than one person helped develop them) than practicality.

When I look at forms I tend to look at them in layers like an onion. The outer layer is the details (what the grading examiner is looking at externally), the next layer is the "gross" movement or the essence of the movement, the next layer is how the gross movements can be applied and then the last layer is what principals underpin those applications and how that feeds into wider understanding.

IMHO the first layer, the details, is often the least important layer. Little stylistic details can vary or change from club to club, instructor to instructor, even in the same style or association. For example when I learnt wedging block the hands were placed one behind the other and brought from low before wedging out and up. I've seen wedging block performed differently than that. The detail often (but not always) have less bearing on the function of the movement than the "gross" movement. Therefore I would put hand shapes in the "details" layer. Fighting/self defence is too dynamic to fix a hand shape for very long. The hands will grab, pull, punch etc and that variety can be incoporated into the "gross movement" without compromising its overall essence.

One thing I do to highlight this sort of approach is to replace all the punches in a pattern with palm strikes. The essence and utility stays the same while the hand shape has changed.